A few weeks ago I saw a post by Union Motor Show on the Instagrams about flat track racing coming to the Utah State Fairgrounds so I snatched up a pair of tickets and let my dad know we had a dad/son adventure on Saturday. A few other notables from the show were the HotDoggin’ folks (info on their next event is here), I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was expecting at the most, some armature, or bottom tear pro level AMA Flat Track racers on some AMA Flat Track bikes, but this was nothing of the sort. This was a family of motorcycle enthusiasts, motorcycle club friends, and a few really supportive family members throwing caution to the wind and letting any and all motorcycles have at it! From little kids, to over 50, there was everything.
I took WAY too many pictures, so this will be an extremely photo intensive post (there are over 100 in my “good enough” folder alone).
In this batch you have the event MC in his “merica’n’est outfit possible, the first qualifying race and I hope the guy that got knocked out is okay. He did stand up and walk out under his own power and guidance by the EMT personnel.
I didn’t see the accident happen that knocked out one of the competitors, so I was pretty concerned about is condition. I grew up in the BMX world so seeing and being knocked out wasn’t uncommon, but when you don’t see what went down, you tend to think about the worst. Fortunately, just before I took the image of him laying there with the EMT folks, he wiggled his fingers, then slid his legs out, and slowly rolled over to his back. Once I knew all of his limbs were working, I took a picture, and we all cheered. He eventually stood up, and walked off track with the EMT folks guiding him. A few minutes later, the flagman lined the riders up, and gave them an all in green flag start.
Remember, these races are in a bull ring, so high speeds aren’t the test here, it is motorcycle control, and determination. The excitement was from the event its self, not the high speeds and “danger”. Most of the accidents were spinning out in a turn, getting some “help” spinning out in a turn from your buddy, or your chain falling off. In one case, we had a pile up between turns one and two. One of the bikes drizzled some fuel onto the track and *boop* we had a fire in the dirt.
Undoubtedly the stars of the show were the little guys. Not little bikes, but little guys on bikes. There wasn’t any real competition, but the kids, were kids, and it was fun to see them get overwhelmed by the crowd cheering them on and the flag man going ballistic for them as they came to the finish line.
My dad snagged us a pair of beers (too big, and too expensive, but they tasted good in the 87* heat), and a Taco Salad they called a “Walking Taco” (really, seriously, horrendously over priced for what it was – the Hot dogs were good, and not crazy expensive though).
Then, the event I didn’t even think about got announced “The Chopper Class”. Unfortunately, there was only “one” real chopper (and he won the 1st qualifier). It was just exciting to see heavy Harley bikes on street tires going in circles. There was a second class of “Dyna” Harley bikes too, more on those down there further. I uploaded a video here, but it doesn’t play in my web browser like I indented, so if I remember, I’ll rip it to another format and see if it works. If not, you get what you get I guess :).
There were a ton of tatted, pierced, long haired, leather wearing, boot having dad’s here too. Along with their short shorts, tatted up, pierced, plugged, and hair died, wives, girlfriends, and mothers. There were no belligerent drunks, no stoned out of their gored wack jobs, just a healthy culture of friends, family, and companionship gathered to enjoy some dusty circle track racing and a lot of laughs.
Along with the motorcycle racing, there were vintage motorcycles on display. Not many were older than I am, but they are as old as my earliest memory of motorcycles. Some remind me of my dad and his buddies headed out on a long weekend together, and some reminded me of pictures I saw in magazines or on TV once in a while. All of them bring back nostalgia, and a wonderment of “how did we live through that madness?”.
Speaking of vintage bikes, there was a class for that. It was actually one of the last classes before we left, but there was a circa 1979 Honda XL500S winning the thing and that reminded me of the bike I absconded from my dad back in the late 80’s and early 90’s (his 1979 Honda XR500). He rode that bike a lot, but I think I rode it even more. That was an almost perfect bike, I miss it dearly.
Another wild and fun event they put on was the “Barrel Racing”. Just like the rodeo, they zipped out of the stalk-aide, ran around three barrels, and hauled ass for the finish line. In a traditional rodeo, it is one horse at time. On this occasion, it was a pair of bikes at the same time! And it was SO FUN to watch.
Barrel Racing of all kinds
I really enjoyed the barrel racing. I think with some closely matched bikes and riders it would be an all out war on bikes. Most of the time with all of the races there were bikes that just out classed the competition. I think some riders were just too new, or not excited to hurt their bikes, or themselves, but it was still an absolute blast to watch these folks have a great day of making dust.
I do have one observation that makes me grit my teeth. Rev limiters should not be allowed because several riders basically pinned the throttle, and let the rev limiter bounce until they got bored. I don’t mind a loud bike, but I want it loud when it is crankin’ out some motivational soil displacement, not just bouncing the rev limiter and making noise for the same of making noise. That kind of noise is what colicky babies are for.
As the sun went lower behind out backs, I had a difficult time knowing if the images were turning out or not. I also realized that I had my auto white balance off and the camera was told we were inside taking pictures under argon lights. I process RAW image files, so they shouldn’t be “too bad” but if I just load the JPG files from the camera, they would all be very blue.
These images are just pictures I enjoyed taking. These are some of those images that aren’t worth a thousand words, but would need well over a thousand words to explain, so just know, these were just fun for me to capture, no more words needed.
Finally, the last of the roundy round races (they did more barrel racing as we were leaving). The sun was finally down enough capturing motion blur was possible, lighting was getting better, and my butt was sore so I walked around a little bit.
Overall I would rate today/tonight’s activities with my dad as full on success. It has been well over 10 years since I took my dad out to see machines go around on dirt (Last time was the World of Outlaws Sprint cars on the Las Vegas dirt track). I hope more events like this come around our area so we can attend, support, and enjoy more Motorsports. This event was less than half packed. I “think” from personal experience it was probably due to a couple factors. First, the promotion was probably hindered by being aimed specifically at the local folks already in the know, and secondly the price. My tickets were a little higher because I also purchased the pit pass. We were unable to find anyone that knew about the pit passes, so we never found a way to go visit with the participants, see their bikes, or interact with everyone putting on the show. That was disappointing because in general, I root far harder when I have met, seen, or talked to a racer (same goes for auto racing, hockey, and motorcycles outside of this one).
If they do this again next year, and I see the purchase link, I will be there. Camera in hand, a few more family members in tow, and a realistic expectation of what is going to happen.
Great job out to Union Moto Show and HotDoggin. Family fun & entertaining event. I highly reccomend!
~me
